Trump Signs Exec Order Targeting EPA “Waters of the U.S.” Rule
In May 2015, Obama’s rogue Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with the Obama U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), released a finalized rule clarifying what “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) means vis-à-vis what can be regulated under the federal Clean Water Act (see EPA Power Grab: Redefines Waters of the U.S. to Include Everything). Essentially the rule change redefines everything down to mud puddles (no, we’re not exaggerating) as subject to the federal Clean Water Act. In October 2015 a federal judge stopped WOTUS from going into effect, while it’s litigated (see Sixth Circuit Court Stops EPA from Implementing WOTUS Anywhere). It took a year, but in November 31 states along with other entities filed briefs with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opposing the rule (see 31 States Ask Court to Dump Obama WOTUS Rule as Unconstitutional). It now looks like we won’t have to litigate it out after all. Yesterday, fulfilling a campaign promise, President Trump signed an Executive Order directing the EPA to reconsider WOTUS. Among the many at the signing ceremony was the new Administrator of the EPA, the marvelous Scott Pruitt–who has pledged to move forward immediately with rolling back WOTUS…
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Less than two weeks ago Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was confirmed to be the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (see 
On Friday, Feb. 3, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave a final approval for Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline project–a $3.7 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada (see 
New York State is a hopeless, corrupt mess. MDN previously reported on a $900 million natural gas-fired electric generating plant coming to Orange County, NY (see 
PDC Energy, a driller in the Wattenberg Field in Colorado and the Utica in Ohio, paused their Utica drilling program in 2015 (see 
The Allegheny Institute exists to conduct research, education and advocacy work in a mission to defend taxpayers and businesses against burdensome taxation, inefficiency and intrusiveness of an ever expanding government. That’s a pretty tall order because government–at all levels–is always expanding, like a voracious monster. Think of the Allegheny Institute as a mini version of the Heritage Foundation–focused on Pennsylvania. Last week the Institute published a new policy brief dealing with the latest severance tax proposal by PA Gov. Tom Wolf. This is a think piece–but not overly heavy. It is quite readable (within a few minutes) and delivers food for thought. As the author points out, you can change to a severance tax from an impact fee (i.e. tax), but will you really reap all of the revenue claimed? Politicians like Wolf often gloss over the economics. Currently, the impact fee is levied on drillers. A severance tax, if enacted, would (in many/most cases) be deducted as an expense from royalty checks, placing the burden for the tax on landowners–and lowering their income, which means less in the way of state income tax revenues. The severance tax proposed by Wolf, when considered honestly, is nothing short of a disaster…
A fake report recently issued by the anti-drilling, radically left and biased Public Herald (populated with activists masquerading as “journalists”) claims that some 9,400 residents in Pennsylvania have filed complaints that fracking has caused them ill-health in one way or the other. It is, according to anti-drillers, a public health “crisis.” How do we know this so-called report is TOTAL BS? Look at who wrote it, and look at who funded it: community organizers wrote it, the Heinz Foundation funded it. This is another sterling example of Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda. The Harrisburg Patriot-News allowed one such community organizer/anti-fossil fueler to run an article on the opinion-editorial page touting the report as legitimate. You can fool some of the people some of the time…
You may recall that in April 2016, New York’s anti-drilling governor, Andrew Cuomo, decided he would cave to pressure from radical environmentalists once again and block the building of the federally-approved Constitution Pipeline (see 
Cabot Oil & Gas is one of the premier drillers in the Marcellus Shale. They drill in a single Pennsylvania county–Susquehanna County. They consistently have 15 of the top 20 producing shale wells in PA. By our back-of-the-envelope estimation, Cabot, all by itself, drilling in one county, delivers something like 3% of all the natural gas produced in the entire country! It is an amazing story. What’s even more amazing is the big heart the company has. Woven into the Cabot DNA is giving back to the communities where they drill. It would take several posts to recount all of Cabot’s largess. We’ll mention just two cases. In 2012 Cabot donated $2 million and helped raise another $2.2 million (for a total of $4.2 million) to help build a new physicians clinic/hospital in Montrose, PA (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Lawyer who helped Vorys start Pittsburgh office joins Steptoe & Johnson; propane tanks for schools questioned with natural gas nearby; Chesapeake Energy: Follow the yellow brick road; Chesapeake Energy: It’s going to be daunting; The oil and gas situation as of February 2017; and U.S. oil exports hit record levels.
In July 2014, MDN told you the water wells for two of three families living near a WPX recycled frack wastewater impoundment (i.e. “pond”), near Ligonier (Westmoreland County), PA, were determined to have been contaminated by that impoundment. That is, the Kalp impoundment leaked into the ground, according to the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), and that caused a long-term problem with those wells (see 
The legislative session for West Virginia is in full swing–a session that lasts for 60 non-contiguous days at the beginning of each year. This year’s session opened on Jan. 11 and will conclude on Apr. 8th. As MDN previously reported, perhaps the biggest energy-related issue for this year’s session will NOT be (as it has in five previous sessions) a bill on forced pooling. Instead, the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) is pushing a legislation on co-tenancy and joint development (see 
Last September MDN reported on a midstream deal with major implications for the Marcellus/Utica: Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge Inc. announced an all-stock deal to buy out pipeline operator Spectra Energy, based in Houston, for $28 billion (see 
Stone Energy is an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (E&P) headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana, drilling mainly in the Gulf of Mexico but also has (or rather had) a presence in the Marcellus/Utica Shale with 86,000 acres of leases. Stone quit actively drilling in the Marcellus in 2015, and filed for bankruptcy last October. As part of the bankruptcy filing, Stone signed a deal with Tug Hill to sell those 86,000 acres to Tug Hill for $350 million (see 
In December, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) threw a little cold water on two important pipeline upgrades to carry more Marcellus/Utica gas to southern markets. A final environmental impact statement (EIS) was due from FERC for both the Mountaineer XPress and Gulf XPress projects no later than April 28, 2017. FERC said that the deadline would slip by three months due to reroutes and additional environment information requested (see